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Sunday, September 30, 2007

Sirloin in ragout. Take a sirloin of the first part, degrease [cut off extra fat] & prick it [wrap it with well seasoned bacon], cook it with the pin [rotisserie]; being half-cooked, remove it from the pin & put it in a pot with juice of ox [jus--which see], some mushrooms, truffles, morels, artichoke bottoms—all well chopped, season with salt & pepper to taste & add a bouquet of sweet herbs; cover the pot & cook gently on embers: when cooked to desired doneness, slice the sirloin & serve it with a ragout of calf sweetbread, foie gras, truffles, mushrooms, morels, willfoam [mushrooms], artichoke bottoms, asparagus tips & salt and pepper to taste; pour a coulis [made from pan drippings, jus and puréed vegetables] above your sirloin & serve warm.

Stuffed sirloin. When your sirloin is almost cooked with the pin, take some of the flesh of the middle and chop quite small with bacon, beef marrow, sweet herbs & good trimmings, as one has just explained to the ragout above, & good seasoning; then you stuff them your sirloin between the skin & the bone; & repin upon the rotisserie properly, for fear the flesh does not fall into the dripping pan while completing cooking: when fully cooked & being table ready, remove the skins [bacon wrappings] to have freedom to eat it with a fork or spoon.

Roast sirloin. Have a sirloin of such size as you wish, cook it with the pin, take care that it is not cooked too much, for fear it does not lose its juice--if you want to eat it rare & red in its juice. Those which do not like it quite so rare, cut it by sections and place slices in a [chafing] dish, then add a little water, pepper, salt, a dash of vinegar & some chopped chives, & make it boil [in the chafing dish]; then serve. Some, who leave it on the pin, eat it with a caper sauce & with the anchovies, which is done thus: One washes well three or four anchovies [removes the salt], and the edges [fins], & chops them, then puts them in a pan with capers & well seasoned ox jus; one only heats this sauce & serves it under the sirloin.

The ox juice [jus] is made this manner. Take a piece of beef rump, cut it by sections & lay it in a pot, cover well with a lid, then put paste around [seal with a paste of water and flour], so that it is air-tight; put it on a small fire & one lets it sweat [cook very slowly in the embers] two hours; then [use a knife to cut the flour seal open] & draw the juice to use as needed.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Boucons, is a ragout which is done as follows: take small sections of fillet of veal a little long & thin & flatten by pounding; then take as many raw ham & bacon plugs as fillets and arrange them perpendicularly on your sections, putting a bacon plug & one of ham on each, sprinkle on a little parsley & chopped Welsh onions [scallions], & season them with fine spices & sweet herbs [traditionally a blend of four herbs — Parsley, Chervil, Chives and Tarragon]. Roll them properly [tie securely] & sear until well browned & add liquid for braising--cover pot: when cooked and tender, degrease, remove to a hot dish to keep warm. Prepare a mushroom ragout in the pan drippings and serve ragout over boucons.

Today, Bouc[h]ons are known variously as corks or rammers or jammers, or beggars' purses. They are a bite-sized morsel, usually cooked [sometimes steamed] in a casing of dough, as in dumpling, or in a mold. Restaurants, paricularly in Lyon, where one can get a quick bite are also called bouchons. And for all you chocoholics, there are cork shaped chocolates filled with marc.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Mushroom Ragout. After they are well cleansed [brushed off], pass them in the pan with very fresh butter, parsley and chibol [scallions] minced, season and stove [cook] them, and when you are ready to serve, put into it the juice and peel of lemon and serve.

Explore with me 18thC French cuisine as a habitante in Nouvelle France may have cooked. After the F&I War, and again after the Revolutionary War, habitantes were surrounded and overrun by Anglo and other American influences. By the end of the 18thC, new foods and new methods of cooking would change her culture forever.